


Fever Dreams

by BryroseA, cheshirecatstrut, CMackenzie, Ghostcat, marshmallowtasha, nevertothethird, scandalpants



Category: Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Veronica Mars Holiday Gift Exchange 2015, egregious classic movie references, seriously kids don't try this at home, sketchy cold medicine usage, there's a dosage cup for a reason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 17:13:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6713731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BryroseA/pseuds/BryroseA, https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheshirecatstrut/pseuds/cheshirecatstrut, https://archiveofourown.org/users/CMackenzie/pseuds/CMackenzie, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostcat/pseuds/Ghostcat, https://archiveofourown.org/users/marshmallowtasha/pseuds/marshmallowtasha, https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevertothethird/pseuds/nevertothethird, https://archiveofourown.org/users/scandalpants/pseuds/scandalpants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If dreams are the way our minds process our deepest fears and desires, then Logan has the world's least subtle subconscious.</p><p>OR Five reasons Dick Casablancas should not be your pharmacist and one reason it's maybe not the worst idea in the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elegantlyelephantly (bigappleelephant)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigappleelephant/gifts), [Lovers_Reunited](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lovers_Reunited/gifts), [kmd0107](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kmd0107/gifts).



> This fic was written as a gift to three wonderful Veronica Mars fans and authors as a VERY belated present from the Holiday Gift Exchange. **KMD** , **elegantlyelephantly** , and **Lovers_reunited** , all three of you said you’d be okay with anything Logan/Veronica, so we hope this fits the bill! We’re so sorry this is late, but all seven authors wanted to make sure you got the best possible fic we could produce!

“On the twelfth day before Christmas, some asshole gave to me…the worst fucking flu in all of history.” Logan sings the familiar tune to himself through clogged sinuses, groaning internally when the concluding ‘ _eee_ ’ sound buzzes painfully against the congestion in his head.

Even sarcasm hurts. Woe is Logan. 

Pushing away from his resting place, he trails disconsolately down the hallway of his apartment, the comforter from his bed wrapped around him like a Grande Dame’s shawl, ends dragging on the floor.

A brutal coughing fit forces him to stop briefly and lean on the wall again for support. He almost just turns around and goes back to the bedroom, but he has a mission: Cold medicine. If there’s any cold medicine in his spartan new apartment it’s probably in the kitchen.

This is a shitty time to get sick. Despite the song running through his head, it’s actually probably more like—Logan tries to calculate, but the math escapes him at the moment—it’s some fucking day in early December. One week left until exams. Sophomore year half over. And yesterday he’d woken up shivering. Fucking flu.

He’s _never_ sick. Never. Hungover, yes, but not sick. Somehow, though, when he is, it’s just, like—it’s just _the worst_. Logan coughs and brings the blanket up to cover his mouth for no good reason, since he’s totally alone in the apartment.

It must be that he has such a strong immune system that when it goes down it really goes down hardcore. Other people can’t _possibly_ feel this bad when they’re sick.

He reaches the kitchen and clutches at the counter. Shifting the comforter swaddling to free one arm, he roots through the cabinet above the coffee maker. When he’d moved out of the Grand this summer he’d tossed a bunch of random crap up here. He shifts aside what looks like the top half of a bicycle pump and then stops to cough into the crook of his elbow.

When Veronica’d had that cold a few weeks ago, she’d still come to class _and_ she’d kept working that dumbass poodle case. Solved it, too, he thinks. They don’t see each other much these days, mostly just during their oh-so-awkward thrice weekly encounters in Film Studies. Two weeks ago, she’d shown up at Monday lecture looking pale and tired—said she was sick—but she hadn’t missed a class. He must have, like, some mutated mega version of whatever she had. Logan rubs a palm across his aching chest and coughs hard enough to double over this time. Probably he’s got pneumonia. Everything hurts.

The cabinet is mostly full of junk, but shoved to the back there are a few bottles. He extracts a mostly full bottle of el cheapo rum and smiles at it, fondly. _Well hello, where did you come from?_  If he can’t find any cold medicine, The Captain will do fine as a substitute. Feed a cold, drown a fever. That’s a thing, right?

He reaches into the cabinet again.

 _Ah ha!_ One of the other bottles has the familiar ovoid shape and cap of cough medicine. He pulls it toward him and the viscous syrup inside sloshes comfortingly. It’s not Nyquil or Sudafed it’s—he squints at the label, which he can’t read—Crap. It’s in Spanish. Sudatos. _Soo-day-toes?_ Must be one of Dick’s purchases.

_Doesn’t even live here and I’m still curating his under-the-counter crap._

The Dick-ster is convinced that anything even remotely medicine-like from Mexico will “fuck you up,” so he always stocks up at border pharmacies when they go to TJ. His enthusiasm has waned a little, though, since that off-brand Claritin didn’t do anything more than clear his sinuses.

Logan sighs and eyes the label again, trying to summon up the ghost of his high school Spanish classes. No dice.

Ah well, one side has a picture of a sick person and the other has the same person looking all better, so it’s clearly cold medicine, despite the lack of an ingredient list. Logan shrugs mentally. He’s put sketchier things into his body.

He unscrews the cap and takes a healthy swallow, grimacing at the licorice-y medicine taste. For good measure, he chases the Suda-whatsis with a slug of rum—the combination ought to either make him feel better, or kill him off. Frankly, at this point—he coughs harshly and clutches his head against the pain—either one sounds acceptable.

Once he staggers out of the kitchen and flops down on the couch, exhaustion spreads through Logan’s body. Just standing upright for that long tired him out, but he doesn’t want to go all the way back to bed. He snags the remote and clicks the TV on as the medicine (or the booze) starts to kick in.

 _Click._ Judge Judy. _Click._ Yu-Gi-Oh!. _Click._ A movie. Ooh, James Caan...Aaron hated him. Acceptable.

His eyelids are drooping closed even before the hand with the remote settles on his stomach. Somewhere in the background, the brassy ring of his landline phone sounds. It’s in the kitchen. Too far. The machine’ll get it...

 

* * *

 

Every joint in Logan’s body hurts, as if someone’d taken a sledgehammer to him.   A familiar voice fades in and out of what sounds like a monologue. “You weren’t in class… paper was due… same number.”

“Paper?” he rasps.

Veronica—he thinks it’s Veronica—comes into blurry focus, her head above his.  Her hair hangs straight, the bangs held to the side with a child’s barrette.  This time when she speaks her voice is closer and oozes sympathy.  “Oh, what happened to you?  Your nose is all ookey.”

“Sick,” Logan half says, half coughs.  His head is too heavy to lift and he contents himself with rolling it to watch as she walks away. 

His eyes come more into focus and he gets a backside view.  Even the shapeless dress with the flower print can’t downplay a sizeable ass. Heavy tights and clunky shoes complete the LDS-compound look.

The room he’s in is dismal; faded flower wallpaper, too-dark wood, and worn furniture a lá a 1930s Sears Roebuck catalog. On the bedside table is a pile of magazines; the top one’s a tattered issue of _Surfing_ with a shot of Dick on the cover, wetsuit and artfully mussed hair et al, staring wistfully into a sunset.

Pain accompanies his attempts to reach for it and brings— _I told her no one can eat fifty lasagnas—_ Veronica back to him.

Small, meaty hands press his shoulders into the mattress and she shakes her head. “Now you just stay right there.  I know what you need.”

A chill racks his body and he coughs so hard his lungs burn.  Logan curls his legs into his chest and Veronica disappears.  “Don’t go,” he wants to beg but the words won’t leave his tortured throat.

When he next becomes aware, his head is full of pressure—most of it centered behind his eye sockets. In front of him is the same print dress, three buttons straining at the midsection.

“V’ronca?” Logan slurs.  His tongue is thick, oversized for his mouth. She leans over him to straighten his blanket.  He pats her ample bottom and kisses the air in her direction.  “You c’m back.”

Veronica grabs his wrist.  With her other hand she waggles a finger in his face.  “Because you have work to do, Mister.”

“Hmm-mmm.” He shakes his head.  “Too tired. You on top.”

She hikes up the skirt of her dress, bringing a twinge of anticipation to his cock. Until she pulls a laptop from between her thighs and throws it on top of him.

“Wha’?”

She shakes her head. “The paper silly.  You need to write the paper.”

Paper. Confusion reigns as Logan tries to remember what paper has to do with a computer.  He turns the laptop over and looks for the paper tray. He fumbles and drops it on the floor.

Her face flushes a deep red. The eyes he thought were small in her now-large face loom huge, inches from his and full of rage.  “Your EFF-ing paper Logan! The cockadoodie is due TODAY! But NOOOO you want to lay here to pee and groan.  TOUGH NUT, MISTER!”

A racing panic makes him damp with sweat.  The paper, due today. _The paper. Write the paper._ He did.  Didn’t he? His finger reach out and click a ‘Send’ button in sense memory.  He breathes. “I wrote it. It’s okay, it’s okay.”

Veronica backs up. Again the skirt is hoisted and she throws a stapled group of papers at him. “NOT GOOD ENOUGH! It’s never good enough!” she yells.  The laptop materializes in her hands again and she smashes it against his knees to punctuate her words.  “You! Do it again! Do it right!”

He’s sitting at a desk, a laptop open in front of him and Veronica behind him.  Pink neon from outside is filtered through the stained glass window.  She places her pudgy hands on top of Logan’s and pushes his fingers on the keyboard so words form on the screen. A player piano in the corner plunks out a tune in synch.

Logan, weakened further, submits.  His mind blurs and his own thoughts fade as Veronica’s voice takes them over.  “Oh, Logan,” she simpers at his ear.   “It’s going to be so good.  See, when you just follow me—“

“No!” With the last of his will his fingers splay open and catch hers.  “No,” he says, stronger now, “Don’t ask me to do that.”

A small man with a too-white smile and a sequined suit prances into the room.  He sits down at the piano and changes the music to something upbeat.  A kitten climbs out of the sparkly jacket and chases the many-ringed fingers across the keys.

Veronica’s hands thin and slide out of Logan’s.  When she walks around to sit in his lap the dress is gone; in its place are jeans and a t-shirt.  Her hair hangs in waves and her eyes are different, bigger and artfully shadowed.

“Okay,” she says, and kisses his eyebrow, his nose. The kitten pounces onto the desk and crawls between them, climbing Logan’s shirt to stick it’s face between theirs.  Its little mouth breathes in, pulling the air from Logan’s lungs—


	2. Chapter 2

He wakes in the middle of a brutal cough, alone and batting at nothing. 

What. The. Fuck?

 _What_ —seriously—he shakes his head, trying to clear off the cobwebs of the dream—a mistake that instantly sends a jolt of pain through his skull. Fuck was that a weird dream, though. No way would Veronica ever **—**

A loud scream from the television jolts him into full awareness. It’s Kathy Bates, in shapeless Little House On The Prairie wear. Logan rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. Oh. _Misery._

It was just the film—double fuck! His film studies paper on Hitchcock’s use of symbolism. It was due this morning. He’s halfway off the couch, headed for his laptop in the other room, when he remembers that he emailed the paper to his professor yesterday, like the good little soldier he’s trying to be this semester.

Settling back into the comforting embrace of the couch, Logan snags a wad of toilet paper from the roll resting on the coffee table, and blows his nose hard enough that it hurts. When the black spots finally clear from his vision, he’s still so congested that the pressure is pounding pulses behind his eyelids. Tossing the tissue down, he reaches for the cold medicine. The syrup goes down easier this time, and the taste doesn’t bother him as much, so he takes another long swallow. _If one is good, two is better!_

He falls back, covering his eyes with his hand. What the hell business does he even have dreaming about Veronica, anyway? Since she’d gotten back from her FBI internship he wouldn’t even call what they had friendship—not really. Sheer dumb coincidence had put them in the same film studies class, but occasional hallway banter and Veronica carefully not sitting too near to him in a large lecture hall don’t exactly scream ‘close personal relationship.’ She probably hasn’t even noticed he’s missed the last two classes.

It’s fucking cold in the room—he’s shivering—and he re-arranges his comforter to cover himself more fully. On screen, Annie is hunting through the house, looking for her hapless prey. Logan grimaces and grabs the remote, clicking around for something more...light-hearted. Veronica would never, ever, track him down like that, not unless she thought he’d done something criminal—or criminally stupid—again.

Actually, she seems oddly…cautious around him. Wary. Logan doesn’t know why; he hasn’t done anything to earn her ire since the cafeteria fight. When she mentions her cases, which she’s been doing more and more frequently in their awkward hallway encounters, she keeps eyeing him like she’s waiting for objections. Like maybe he’s supposed to freak out on her, even though she’s always been a badass and her summer at the FBI just made him more certain of her ability to handle dangerous situations. Like she’s looking for something from him.

Eventually, Logan settles on another slug of cough medicine and Gilligan’s Island reruns on TV Land. Coconut related hijinx. The Skipper forgot to do something. Submit his Hitchcock paper? No. He did that. Just as he’s drifting off, he thinks he hears a tentative knocking at the door. Then a pounding, really. It’s coming from the TV, though, he thinks…

 

* * *

 

The pounding settles into a steady rhythm—of movement, travel. A train on its tracks. He’s jostled to the right; forehead meeting glass with a thwack. He rubs his hand on his forehead—it's wet, he's sweating. The sweat burns, then cools and he shivers against the shift, wiping his hand on his tweed suit.

He doesn't own a tweed suit.

Across from him, a pudgy-cheeked boy in a sailor suit stares with that blank, unblinking expression favored by all terrifying children. The child’s mouth is smeared with something sticky and cherry red, fanning out on his cheek in the shape of a lasso. Next to the boy is a rotund man, legs crossed at the cankle, hidden behind an open newspaper. Instead of a face, all Logan sees are smudged-ink small print articles, ads for ironing boards, war bonds, and on the top left corner, a small photo of himself in a fedora with the caption: MURDERER.

Hurriedly, before he can even formulate a plan, he leaves the train compartment, struggling with the handle to the sliding door on his way out. The narrow corridor seems to press in on him and he stretches his right arm out to the windows as he walks, jostled by the steady sway of the train as it speeds past an outdoor station without stopping. He doesn't make the name.

Ahead of him, further down the hall, two policemen wearing bobby-style hats appear, walking slowly with matching steps, and stop to look at the sitting passengers. He turns around to go back. Logan’s not sure who he’s supposed to have killed this time but with no Veronica Mars or cell phone at hand, he’s not taking any chances.

When he reaches the compartment, the portly man with the newspaper is talking to a train attendant, pointing to his newspaper photo and now unoccupied seat. Logan coughs, unexpected and violent, throat like a fistful of nettles. Both men and the sticky-faced child turn to him slowly, three marionettes. Logan touches his hat and moves on, exiting the moving car to the space between. The outside noise is a stark contrast to where he'd been; loud, rushing train engines and a wildly beating heart.

The air is cold, the trees and roads pass by in a beige, gray, and green blur. He breathes, relishing the illusion of freedom, when a familiar voice breaks the spell.

“May I come home with you?”

She is still so beautiful, swaying on her feet, a gloved hand supporting herself on the next car’s entry door. Her blue-green eyes lined black, that long blond hair tucked under a black hat. At the corner of her right temple, there is the faint trace of what he never ever wanted to see—blood. It doesn't quite match her lip color, more violet-red than brown. She'd always hated clashing.

Logan steps in, torn between impulses, most of them crazy. Pet the soft rabbit fur of her scarf, kiss her nose, hold her close, apologize for his father, laugh, cry. He does none of those things, instead he says, as if reading off of a script, “What’s the idea?”

“Well, I’d like to.”

Lilly blinks, her chin tilted defiantly up. He’d missed her blinking.

“It’s your funeral,” he murmurs.

Logan puts his arm around her, steering her carefully to the next car, her shoulders smaller than he remembers. She whispers, “Three compartments down, knock three times. When she doesn’t love you, she’ll let you know.”

Her lips brush against his cheek, cold to hot. When he shuts the door behind them, she’s gone.

There’s no time to be sad about the goodbye. Not with his legs buckling beneath him and who knows who after him for whatever murder of the week he most certainly did not commit. First compartment. He did look great in the photo, he had to thank whoever chose to shoot him from his right side. Second compartment. He nearly falls, scrambling up like he’s about to do “Rose’s Turn” to a packed house, palms out, fingers wiggling. _Wait, that hasn’t even been written yet._ Third compartment. He knocks three times, enters, breathes a ragged sigh of relief.

Veronica looks up at him, demure in glasses, her hair curled around her face. He slides next to her on the seat and she frowns.

“Please, before you speak, can I just say how very,” he wiggles down to address the enormous white bow at her chest. “Very,” he whispers to her upper arm. “Very, very,” her shoulder and neck. Not touching, just talking. “ _Pleased_ I am to see you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Those glasses are so hot.”

Her eyes narrow for a microsecond, she’s clutching a book to her, and the whole 1930s librarian look is working for him in an immediate, completely inappropriate way, considering his possible life and death situation.

Veronica removes her glasses. “And yet, you’re not looking at my eyes.”

Logan smiles, he loves it when she sits up straighter. “Look, I have no idea why they’re after me this time but they are. Logan Echolls, Neptune’s favorite murder suspect, it’s a perennial summer jam. You gotta help me.”

“Help you?” Her lips are pink, she licks them.

“Yeah, figure out what’s going on. Prove my innocence. The usual.”

She brings the book up to her chest. _A Room of One’s Own_. He fingers the gold embossed lettering on the word “room”. _O-O._

“And how do you propose to get off this train, Mr. Echolls?”

“Help me escape. I don’t know. Distract them somehow.”

“There are two policemen at the door,” she says, her voice pitched low and angry. “They’re coming in.”

“Ah, better make it count then.”

He presses himself to her, lips firm to hers, and she stiffens, arms rigid. Book in one hand, glasses in the other. Dimly, he hears someone enter the compartment, several someones. Logan opts to ignore them, changing the angle of approach and widening his fingers on her back, sliding across, until she’s tight in his arms, and oh, how she melts. Her mouth opens under his and he licks the soft curve of her top lip to a gasp. She drops her glasses. Behind him, the police officers mutter apologies, shuffle out, but before they’re fully gone, Veronica pushes him away from her. Hard.

“Stop,” she shouts, huskily. “Officers.”

“Veronica, no.”

He doesn’t know this face, that expression. Or maybe it’s been too long and he’d nearly erased it from his memory. She’s diamond-edged sharp angles and teeth.

“This is the man you want, I think.”

Logan gets up, hurt, but a teeny part of him unsurprised.

“But before—” the cop starts.

“He forced his way in here,” Veronica interrupts. “Said his name was Echolls and that he needed help escaping.”

“Is that true? Is your name Echolls?” Three sets of little piggy eyes stare at him. Veronica is a study in steely satisfaction.

He stands, hands behind his back, feeling along the outside train door. The ones used to exit compartments directly onto station platforms. The kind he’s about to stupidly open on a fast moving train.

Dick Casablancas appears behind the policemen, dressed like a pomaded waiter, grinning like a fool, and carrying a small toy sailboat.

“Dude, you up for some waves later?”

Logan holds his finger up, breathes in. “Maybe.”

He shoves the cop closest to him with one arm, causing a mini avalanche of boys in blue, and uses the other to unlock the latch and push back. The door opens out and just as fast, he falls with it, barely catching himself. The wind is blowing hard and it is not right, fundamentally not right to be hanging out of a train at high speeds. He shuts the door, hangs tight to the outside of the car, and shimmies along the edge as quickly as possible to the next compartment, rushing in and out, back into the hallway. A frantic string section plays and behind him, the policemen’s feet pound in perfect accompaniment. Inside his head, a different sort of pounding, oppressive and painful.

Logan runs on and the train slows. He'd heard one of the men shout something about an emergency brake. Rather than press further, into a car that looks suspiciously like that Fitzpatrick bar, he jumps off the now-stopped train onto a bridge suspended over a river. He climbs the bridge railing, looks at the brackish water below and steps off. He's seen this movie. The fall is longer than it should be, a swirling vortex, and he braces himself for impact. One second, two seconds, three.

The water is solid and not water at all… it’s checkered. Checkered marble. _Ugh._ It reminds him of Duncan’s chess pattern phase. Everything had to be like his favorite game.

“Listen, party boy. You need to get yourself together and stand up.”

Veronica, resplendent in a black dress, looms over him at a pitched angle. She pokes him daintily with a foot.

“Where did the cops go?”

She bends down, single eyebrow raised. “Sit up. Your wife might come back around and I don’t think we can pull off another stolen kiss distraction. You can hardly kick me out a second time.”

“Wife?”

 _God, he feels like shit._ The room spins. The portraits hanging on the mahogany walls melt, the faces grotesque and elongated.

“Come on, Logan. How much have you had to drink? You oughta take it easy on that liquor. Self-respect aside, you have a job to do.”

“Gotta stay true to type, sugarbunch. Tell me, what movie are we in now? Please, don’t say _Psycho_.”

Her brows knit. “Are you alright?”

The pounding commences afresh. _Boom, boom, boom_.

“Yeah, just enjoying my very own personal journey through film, that’s all.”

Logan stands, he’s in a fitted tux. Very fitted. He catches Veronica giving him an appreciative once-over but when their eyes meet, she looks away with a practiced air of dismissal.

“Did you have them take it in a size?”

“Just giving the people what they want.” He shuffles closer. “Is this what you want?”

The effect is ruined by his sudden lurch forward, his head falling onto her shoulder. It feels like there’s ants in his veins instead of blood.

“Hey,” she says, pulling back, her eyes large with concern. Pity. “You don’t look so hot.”

“Hangover,” he lies. Anything to erase that expression. It works. Her eyes harden, mouth open and panting.

“You almost had me believing that a man like you could change his spots.”

His head might crack into a thousand pieces but he smiles through it. “ _Almost_ , huh? Ouch. Right below the belt every time.”

Time slows and stretches between them, a tenuous tie. Logan sways on his feet. “Why won't you believe in me? Just a little.”

“It's lucky for both of us that I don't. It wouldn't be pretty if I did.“

His vision goes green. Green. Purple. Brighter purple. Red. Veronica has hidden spirals in her hairdo and his throat is dry. Coughing isn’t doing what it should. She approaches, moving from shadow to light, and there must be something, words he can use to make her see him but he speaks before he thinks and it comes out all wrong.

“It must make you sick. Poor Veronica can’t stay away from that no-good Logan. It must be awful, I'm sorry. Don’t worry, you can keep holding my hand, saving me from scrapes. I won’t tell—”

This time she kisses _him_ and his mind goes pitch-black, like a train entering a tunnel.

When Logan pulls away, he brings her closer. Not deliberately—they’re handcuffed together. Veronica grabs his collar with her free hand and pulls him to her, kissing him lightly, softly, his neck, his chest, his ears. Never his mouth, she dances around it. Distantly, a phone rings and stops. He turns his head to cough.

“Mixed signals, Veronica.”

She pulls back, lit up in dramatic shadow, black and white. Her teeth glisten like pearls. “Maybe a chicken dinner, what do you think? A whole baked chicken. We’ll eat it with our fingers.”

Veronica sits down on a massive bed with creaking springs that comes seemingly out of nowhere, and he sinks into it as well, battling another coughing fit. His chest knots painfully.

“Logan. I need to remove my stockings.”

Now in a silk nightgown straight from the Ginger Rogers dance-and-seduce collection, Veronica angles her leg at the skirt-slit, flashing a seamed stocking and dainty garter with a bow.

“You need help?”

“You can help me by eating your sandwich,” she smiles seductively.

His free hand holds a sandwich, a lobster salad sandwich with tiny bits of celery and mayo. He throws it. “Et tu, Veronica?”

“Once a suspect, always a suspect. Once a tramp, always a tramp. Watch me.”

She rolls her stocking down and he’s forced to follow. His left hand to her right, the soft, soft skin of her leg. He struggles to keep his fingers limp when all he wants to do is touch. His killer, his judge, the hottest girl he knows.

Veronica stands and leans in. “Go ahead.”

He pulls on the garter bow, hanging with no stocking. It stretches and gives. His fingers brush the inside of her thigh, he lets them trail there, and her answering moan is too loud. It startles, it’s not quite _right_.

They’re not on the edge of the bed anymore, they’re on it. It rose up to meet them and brought them back to horizontal. His background doesn’t match the foreground and he’s so hot, sweat is pooling into his eyes.

“I really want to do this, but I don’t—”

“ _Shhhh_ ,” she whispers, producing a glass of milk. “Go on, drink it.”

Both of his hands are handcuffed to the bed. She’s free and wearing dainty white gloves. The milk is poisoned. Logan knows this because he’s been here before. It’s always this. The glass is always in close-up, slowly approaching. The picture always blurs and fades. Every single time. He shivers.

“Can I get one last request?” Logan croaks.  
  
Veronica’s smile is a dangerous thing. She slides a gloved hand down his chest. The pounding is more insistent, rapid fire.

The palm becomes a single finger. He rises off the bed, trying to follow it, pushing for more pressure.

“Nuh-uh, lover boy.” she sing-songs. “First drink, then dessert.”

In this movie, her hair is white, her eyes are gray, her lips close to black. He’s so hot, he’s dying. His skin burns, from his lips to his toes. The pounding is so loud, it could bring back color.

“I know you don't love me but I love you,” he says, shaking as he drinks from the glass she brings up to his lips. There. The taste of almonds. He swallows. The knuckle of a single finger dragging-slow down the crotch of his pants.

“Of course you do. Everyone loves an icy blonde.”


	3. Chapter 3

Logan shoots upright on a surge of adrenaline—the world throbbing around him in a cyclical sort of haze. Movement so 3-D it is almost a sound. Pounding. No wait, that was the dream. It’ll stop.

The dream. Veronica. Hitchcock. Paper. He needs to—no, he turned in the essay. But he’s forgetting….Damn does he feel fucked up. Sick, but kinda good, too? Someone called earlier. Yesterday? He should check the machine.

Everything hurts, and he’s hot and cold all at the same time, and his lips are still sticky from the damn medicine. Ugh. It must be wearing off. Good thing Dick got the jumbo bottle of Sudaydoodle, so there’s plenty left. What he _really_ needs is a more efficient delivery system.

This time, when he tries to get off the couch, the blanket holds him back. It’s wrapped around his legs—twining, circling like a snake. Sssssnake. Extricating himself clumsily, he drags himself up and into the kitchen in search of...something. What? There was a reason he got up and came in here.

The Hitchcock paper! He needs to—No. No. He turned it in already.

Logan spots the rum bottle, still sitting on the counter. Ah ha! That was it. A spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.

He roots through the junk drawer, comes up with a novelty bendy straw from god-knows-where and sticks it between his teeth like a matador’s rose. Cradling the rum bottle, he heads back to his nest on the couch, where the TV still blares. Something sweet and silly is what he needs. Nothing dark. Is Gossip Girl on? What time is it, anyway? Hell, what day? Someone called earlier. Didn’t they? Kitchen. The phone is in the kitchen. Someone called.

The couch is soft and swaying comfortably underneath him. Like a hammock. Mmm...like in Jamaica. He flails one arm out, looking for the rum bottle, encounters the medicine instead, sticks the straw in and sucks up a mouthful. It’s got kind of a nice aftertaste, actually.

Ahh...there’s that nice warm drowsy buzz he’s looking for. This stuff is really starting to work. He definitely feels a little better. His fingers finally encounter the rum bottle, pull it toward him. Probably he could even go back to class tomorrow – he should harness the zen he’s found. Don’t come to the 4.0 – let the 4.0 come to you.

He turns the channel to the first station not showing a commercial and closes his eyes, clutching the rum bottle to his chest like a beloved stuffed animal.

“I love you Rummy,” he whispers. “You’re my best friend.”

He hears the familiar chords of an introductory film score and screws one eye open, peering at the television through his sick-haze.

“Rummy, my mom loved this movie,” he says. “My mummy. My mummy, she also loved rummy.” Logan giggles, a little sad no one is around to appreciate his comedic genius.

He can barely make out Goldie Hawn’s shrill voice as his eyes droop closed. “Catarina,” he says, turning his head and bringing the bottle back to his mouth.

He’s a little concerned when he hears Rummy answer back with a barely audible “Arturo.”

 

* * *

 

The past three days have been a futile exercise in temperature control. Too hot, too cold, too sweaty, too swaddled, not swaddled enough. But now, for the first time in what feels like weeks, Logan is blissfully content. His rhinestone studded aviators shield his sensitive eyes while his gold lamé dressing gown prevents the sun from damaging his fair skin. Perhaps freckles will soon be back in vogue, but until that time he’ll do as his wealthy English ancestors did and allow others to become wrinkled in the name of providing him with shade.

Well, that’s what he _would_ be doing if the concept wasn’t such a challenge for his latest valet.

“Shelly, dear, what part of ‘hold the umbrella over my head’ presents such a problem for your two brain cells?”

“Sorry Mr. Echolls.”

Logan turns his head to the side, tipping his sunglasses down to rest on the bridge of his nose. Today’s Umbrella-Shelly Pomeroy is a real upgrade from last week’s. Her long, dark brown hair falls to the middle of her waist, and she looks to be at least 5’10” which means she might have a hope in hell of keeping up with him during his shopping expeditions.

“Where’s Shelly?” he asks.

“I’m Shelly, Mr. Echolls.”

“Do I look like a half-wit? I want Shelly-Two.”

Shelly-Two is a throwback to the late 90’s – pink sweater set that displays three inches of her midriff, Christina Aguilera inspired haircut and requisite highlights, and high wedges that will inevitably lead to a twisted ankle. She’s also carrying a silver tray with his 3 PM snack and it’s perfect timing. He was starting to feel faint.

“Well,” Logan says, his disdain for this Shelly audible, “I almost had to wait.” Shelly Aguilera removes the top from the silver tray and reveals a large bowl of ceviche surrounded by homemade tortilla chips.

He flips the tray, sending the contents careening across the ground and raises his aviators back to cover his eyes. “If attempting to poison the boss, one should be discreet, you buffoon.”

Shelly Aguilera whimpers and dives to the ground to pick up the contents of the upturned tray, but Logan flicks his hand with practiced malaise and the offending food vanishes. “Leave it. Have Shelly Three fix me a Mai Tai. Shelly One, I’m ready for my pedicure.” Logan raises a leg in the air and points his toes, flexing and rotating his ankle in preparation.

“If I drop the umbrella, sir, your skin might freckle.”

“Well, find a way to ensure that doesn’t happen.”

Somehow Umbrella-Shelly has managed to transport them to a new location without him even noticing. She’s also erected a gazebo that provides him with the perfect amount of shade. The craftsmanship is spotty but he’ll yell about that later. For now he intends to enjoy this blissful moment.

His new lounge spot bears a close resemblance to the Neptune High parking lot and one glance to his left reminds him that, oh _that’s right_ , his backwoods mechanic is fixing his baby today. Logan knows she finds it annoying when he supervises her work, however if he doesn’t she may wipe her grubby townie hands all over his leather interior. Is nothing sacred?

Logan reaches out and one of the Shellys provides him with another Mai Tai. After the week he’s had, this type of relaxation is exactly what he deserves. No one understands the strain he’s been under. Taking care of himself is not something he is equipped for. He hears a snort of derision come from under the hood of his car and finds that Veronica has stopped working on his baby in favor of staring at him.

“What?” he asks, coming up to his full height, puffing out his chest. He drops the Mai Tai and the polished cement floor of the gazebo swallows up the liquid, fruit garnish, and glass.

The bell sleeve of his robe is wrapped around his arm and trips him up for a moment. “Sssnake,” he hisses. He stands, the picture of grace, and flips the edges of the robe behind him to show off his oiled torso and nautical-themed sequined swim shorts to great effect.

“You heard me,” he repeats. “What are you laughing about?”

“Nothing,” she says. “I find it puzzling, though, that you think you’re low-maintenance.”

“I am low-maintenance,” he counters. He’ll worry later about how she read his thoughts. “I am the lowest of maintenance. I drive a sensible black SUV.”

“Well good for you.” She stoops to fiddle with the contents of his engine again and he feels dismissed, which simply won’t do.

“I take it you’re not finished with the work.”

“Does it look like I’m finished?”

He sidles closer for a peek. “Do you consider it beneath you to meet a deadline? Or are you incapable?”

“Listen, Logan, I don’t know what makes you think – “

“What makes me think that I can tell you what to do? Well, I am the customer. I pay. You perform the service. Paying attention to my every request.” He props his sunglasses up on his head and steps closer to her - almost so the toes of his sandals hit her work boots. “In other words _dance, monkey, dance._ ”

Veronica clenches her jaw and it makes Logan smile the way she tries so hard to act unaffected. He hears a hitch in her breath at their proximity - feels it roll through him as if it’s his own. There’s something there between the two of them, always has been, and he wants more of it. He’s giddy with the realization that she must enjoy being riled as much as he likes riling her.

From the corner of his eye he sees an empty plastic bottle tipped over on its side. He knows without even picking it up that she’s used the wrong oil for his baby’s delicate engine. Again. He stoops down to pick it up and presents it to her, almost lovingly.

“What do you call this?”

“I call it oil. Why, what do you call it?” Her expression isn’t what he’d call a smile, but there’s something alight there. She knows the game he’s playing and with the quirk of a brow dares him to continue.

“I call it an abomination. I call it drivel. I call it strictly verboten from touching the crooks and crevices of my car. High performance vehicles cannot function on _this_.” Logan tosses the bottle in the air and loses sight of it as it goes up, up, up into the sky. “Do the work again.”

Veronica turns to face him, her hands on her hips. “No problem. I'll start all over if that’s what you want. I just have to tell ya, that's gonna more than double my estimate.”

Logan turns on his heels, swishing his robe behind him. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve already done the work once, and now to do it all again –“

“I'm not paying for your mistake!”

“Look, Logan, I'm not just gonna eat it on this job.”

“You will eat it because I am not satisfied.”

“Remind me why your satisfaction is my problem.”

“Because when I’m satisfied, you’re satisfied. Remember?”

Veronica throws the wrench to the ground and the force of the action causes it to bounce a couple inches. It’s hardly threatening but it startles Logan all the same and he clutches a hand to his chest. His skin is hot, like a memory he can’t quite place burns beneath his skin.

“You know what your problem is?” Her anger is almost a tangible thing, rolling off of her in waves and mixing with the scent of her perfume as she stalks towards him. It’s familiar, somehow, and rather than step away he leans closer. Oh, that’s right — this is his favorite part.

“Yes. I hired a two-bit mechanic who ended up being worth half that.”

“Your problem is that you’re too much a cliché for your own good. Poor little rich boy so bored with his gilded cage he’s determined to make everyone around him miserable.” She’s close enough that he can smell the notes of marshmallow in her perfume. Despite her obvious fury, he wants to tuck the errant strand of hair slipping from her ponytail behind her ear.

“So you’ve got me all figured out?”

“Since day one, my friend.” She blows out a puff of air through her lips and the force of it knocks Logan back. Strong arms wrench him even further backwards, one almost violently wraps around his waist, and he’s pulled away from her.

“Logan? Where are you going?” Veronica sounds moments from crying – and there’s a telltale glassy sheen in her eyes. He doesn’t want it there - would give up everything to never see it there again. He thought they were just a mechanic and a customer but maybe they’re more than that. “Logan?”

Her calling for him barely makes sense. If she wants him, doesn’t want him to leave, then why is he being pulled away? And why does it feel like it’s happened before? Like it’s something that’s inevitable.

Still, he finds himself fighting against the people separating them. She’s getting smaller and smaller and he’s getting further from where she stands by his car. He’s twisting and turning, trying to jerk his arms away from the grip of his captors, when he gets enough leverage to see their faces. Both people are him, but not a him he can ever remember being.

The one on his right is wearing an olive green shirt with an open button-down layered over the top. The black and white puka shell necklace is what jumps out at him. Who would ever? Puka-Logan looks down at him sadly.

“This is for the best, Logan.  You know you’re not what she wants.”

Suddenly it feels very important that he prove this Logan wrong. “That’s not true!”

Puka-Logan laughs at him. “Really? Look at what happened between the two of you back there. You can’t be in the same space without imploding.”

“She’s calling for me.” On cue, he hears Veronica’s voice again. It’s faint. Almost a whisper inside his head. “Can’t you hear her?”

“Listen to him, Logan.”

Logan turns his head to the left and this Logan looks like he’s just crawled out of a dumpster. There’s a smear of blood on his bottom lip and the hands that are gripping his forearm are cracked and bleeding.

“Who are you?”

Bleeding-Logan smiles sadly at him. “I’m the Logan she walked away from the last time.”

“She’ll never want you,” Puka-Logan agrees.

“You’re wrong.” Logan plants his feet, digging his heels into the ground. The pavement is hot from the sun and he’s tempted to hop around to relieve the burn, but he refuses to move. “She’s calling me.” Maybe those are the magic words, or maybe Puka-Logan and Bleeding-Logan are just distracted enough that he can get away, but he finds himself running across the parking lot. Back to her. When he looks down he’s wearing a dark Henley and a pair of jeans and he _feels_ more like himself. This is the Logan he needs to be.

“Veronica!” he shouts. With each step the ground beneath him shifts until he realizes he’s no longer running on pavement but wading into the ocean. He can see his SUV, his grown-up sensible SUV he thought was so important, floating in the water. Veronica is sitting on the hood, scanning the ocean. He knows she’s looking for him.

“Veronica!” he shouts again.

He hears her voice – a beacon guiding him home. “Catarina!” And it’s not his name. He knows that but it doesn’t really matter because she’s calling to him. Calling for him.

“Arturo!” he calls back.

“Catarina!”

His clothes are waterlogged and his chest burns with the effort of swimming across the waves. As much as he doesn’t want to take his eyes from the truck, from Veronica, he puts his head down and paddles, kicking his feet with every stroke. When the ache becomes too much he pauses to take a breath. There’s someone floating on a surfboard directly in his path to Veronica. He can just see her head over the body blocking his view.

The oblivious surfer turns his face towards him and holds out a bag of chips. “Dude, Cheeto?”

“Not now, Dick. I need to get to Veronica.”

Dick sighs. “Of course you do.” He lays back on the board and, with no effort on his part, glides past him, hovering above the waves.

Logan looks back to his car, still floating in the ocean, and almost sinks when he can’t see Veronica. She’s gone, no longer waiting for him.

But then, he _knows_ this part. She must be gone because she’s coming for him. They’ll meet in the middle. He strains against the waves, swimming harder than before and, though he can’t see her, he listens for her voice.

“Catarina!”

She’s coming.

“Arturo! Veronica!”

Her name is Veronica Mars but she’s always Arturo to him – the person who, when he’s lost, dives from her place of safety to find him. She wants him. He _needs_ her, and if he can just get to her he knows he can be that for her, too.

“Veronica!”


	4. Chapter 4

“Logan!”

“No,” he mumbles into his pillow. “Mm Catarina.”

“Logan, answer the door!” Along with the yelling there is a never ending pounding, and this time the pounding won’t go away.

It's in his head—pulsating like a heavy hammer behind all of the congestion—and then it's outside. In the apartment. At the door. Someone's at the door.

“Rummy? Who’z it?”

Logan rolls off the couch and trades the rum bottle for the cold medicine, sucking up another hit of cough syrup. The bendy straw was brilliance. Sheer brilliance. He should get sick more often, his mind is functioning on, like, a whole ‘nother level.

He’s up. Moving. He gets momentarily distracted trying to chase the straw as it slips away from his mouth and when he finally latches back on, the pounding has stopped. Or relocated, anyway, to his head and his— _shit._

He stumbles back to the bathroom and pees for about nine hours straight, the sudden emptiness of his bladder a comforting bodily ache. Actually, _all_ of his bodily aches feel comfortably far away, hidden behind a fuzzy blanket. Even his head feels better. Soodeetooey for the win. _Where did I leave the rum?_

Exiting the bathroom, he’s fifty-fifty on heading for the bedroom or the living room but...he looks around. He put the rum...somewhere. Kitchen?

He braces one hand on the wall and starts staggering forward. “My rummmm is like a red, red rose that’s newly—”

"Are you _drunk_ or sick, Logan?"

"Veronica! Where’d you come from?" He can feel a loopy grin spread across his face and that's wrong, somehow. The wrong reaction to Veronica at this particular time—she’s mean, or she’s mad at him, or is he mad at her?—he can't remember exactly, so he just leans against the kitchen door frame and smiles at her while she scans him up and down.

Veronica doesn’t answer, but she’s not wearing anything strange—just jeans and a green v-neck t-shirt he’s seen her in before—so that must mean she’s really here. Not a dream or hallucination. But...she's glowing. Does Veronica usually glow?

She reaches around behind him and grabs the rum bottle out of the pot of the fake ficus in the corner. There it is! What a clever hiding spot he’d picked.

“Drunk, then?”

"Veronica!" This time it's an indignant huff. Why, how very dare she! Here all he’s been doing is dreaming about her, and thinking about her, and missing her, and all _she_ can do is accuse him of— He gathers his comforter shroud around him with all of the dignity he can muster. "I. Am. Sick. Very sick."

She puts the rum down and leans up on her tiptoes to press her palms flat against his face in that mom gesture you see all the time on TV, checking his forehead, his cheeks. Logan can't help but close his eyes and lean into her cool touch. He stumbles a little, knocking into her, and she's soft, and beautiful, and _here_ , and he's really pretty tired again all of a sudden, so it's okay if he just leans on her a little, right?

“Hm, drunk _and_ sick.” She finally proclaims, buckling a little under his weight. He tries to straighten up, but she locks an arm around his waist, steering him toward the living room, and fuck if he’s going to protest that.

As they stumble past his front door, something strange catches his eye. “Hey! My lock!” The chain lock on his door seems to be snapped in two.

“Must’ve been weak metal,” Veronica grunts, wedging her shoulder deeper into his side as she helps him over to the chair in the corner of the living room. “You should get the landlord to look into it.”

She dumps him into the wingback and then stands over him, hands on her hips, assessing.

“What’re you doing here, Veronica?” He squints up at her. “Didn’t even think you knew where I lived now.”

She scoffs and Logan smiles and then frowns. Smiles again. Frowns again. Whoa does his face feel weird, right now. Veronica might be a little right about the drunk part.

“You weren’t in class today or Monday. The final is next week.”

“Yeah well, you know me,” he manages a smile, “my academic commitment is shallow at best.”

“You haven’t missed a lecture all semester,” she murmurs, and then presses the back of her fingers to his hot cheek again. He tries desperately not to cough on her.

“You caught what I had—the thing that’s going around,” she decides. “It was nasty.”

Logan hacks a little, pathetically; perversely offended that she’s so casually dismissing whatever demon strain of pneumonia he’s infected with. “Ugh, no. This is worse.”

Veronica frowns. “Have you eaten anything today?”

He thinks rum probably doesn’t count. “No?”

“Stomach upset?”

“No, just—” He sighs. “Nothing sounds good. I’ll just take some more medicine. And—you don’t have to stay.”

She purses her lips. “Wait here.” She moves out of his line of sight toward the kitchen. A few cabinets bang open and closed. “You have soup,” she calls. “Want me to heat you up some beef and vegetable?”

“Nooo. It’s canned. You know I can taste the can.”

“Why is it even in your cupboard, then?”

There’s no good answer to that so he just kind of…flops back in the chair. He can hear Veronica sigh, and then she’s moving around again, bustling through the living room and back to the bedroom like she knows her way around, which, she’s never been to his place before…right? God, his head hurts so bad. Where’s that medicine?

He starts to lean over far enough to reach the bottle on the coffee table, but Veronica swoops in from out of nowhere. “Nope! You definitely don’t need any more of whatever the hell this is.” She plucks the straw out of the opening and frowns at it.

No one appreciates brilliance anymore. “But I’m siiiick.”

“Yes, and you’re also high on that stuff.” Her voice softens, and the fact that she’s still subtly glowing maybe proves her point a little more than he’d like to admit. “It can’t be helping you get better.” She turns the bottle around in her hands. “Mexican cough syrup? Logan, there could be anything in this.”

He groans and closes his eyes and Veronica goes back to bustling around. He kind of blinks out for a minute, mind going comfortably blank, and when he fights back to the surface, Veronica is tugging on his hand, trying to pull him out of the chair.

“Come on, let’s get you lying down.”

He drapes himself over her with a groan and they struggle toward the couch. He’s sweaty and disgusting and stubbly and she feels _amazing_. Probably smells amazing too, if he could smell anything. Her hair looks like sunshine probably tastes. He could eat it. If he was hungry. “I love you, V’ronica.”

Her sharp exhale of breath is warm and sticky against his skin. “Logan, you’re so high you probably love everything right now.”

“No. You. Speshi—specifishish—Speshficially.”

She slides out from underneath his arm, and he collapses onto the couch. “Okay, okay, drunky. Why don’t you lay down? Get some sleep.”

He wants to whine for her to stay, but he has some vague idea that a non-sick him made a vow never to—ah, fuck it. He collapses back, unable to think or reason through anything. At some point while he was drowsing, Veronica had spread clean sheets over the couch, tucking them into the cushions, and changed the pillowcase on the pillow he’d dragged out from his room.

The crisp sheets smell fresh and feel like heaven. There’s a tactile pleasure in cleanliness that he never fully appreciates unless he’s been as gross as he is right now. But…

“Veronica…why sheets?”

She’s a soft voice somewhere in the room. _Going? Staying?_ “I don’t know, it’s just what you do when someone is sick. To keep you from sweating into the couch too much, maybe? I always liked it, though.”

“Yeah, it’s…” He takes a big breath in of cotton and detergent. “Yeah.”

“Go to sleep, Logan.”

Veronica settles on the couch next to his pillow, and rests a tentative hand on his hair, and that’s all it takes to send the world pleasantly black.

 

* * *

 

Logan sits, watching the revelry, elbow propped on the back of the couch, playing with his hair to keep it artfully mussed.  Drunken teenagers sway and gyrate in groups all around a fancy hotel room, cheering Gia, the city’s new First Daughter.  The crowd parts, and Deputy Sacks walks over.  “Sheriff would like to have a word with you.” Logan blinks and finds himself on his feet, Sacks slapping the handcuffs onto his wrists. “Logan Echolls, you’re under arrest for putting Mr. Daniels’ car on the flag pole.”

Logan sighs and rolls his eyes.  “I am having the _weirdest_ déjà vu thing right now.”

Sacks pushes Logan through the crowd of 09ers in the hotel room and out the door…

…into the Neptune High library.  An old Simple Minds song is drifting faintly from the speakers, but that’s impossible; this is a library.  There’s no music in a library.  Not to mention Dick, wearing a wetsuit of all things, is pushing a giant broom down the aisle between two rows of study tables.  He passes Logan and winks before sweeping the dirt out into the hallway.

Logan turns to object to the hand at his back, but Sacks is no longer behind him.  _What the hell? Where did he go?_  Instead, Principal Clemmons shoves him not-so-gently into a chair at one of the tables.  Several other tables are already occupied, one student sitting at each.  Logan can’t really make out who they are, but somewhere it registers in his brain that he knows them.  Maybe it’s the subtle smell of the perfume in the air or the familiar glow emanating from each of their seats.

The door slams shut suddenly.  Clemmons turns to Logan and shouts, “Gimme that screw!”

Logan leans back and hooks his arm over the back of his chair.  “I don't have it.  Screws fall out all of the time, the world's an imperfect place.”

Clemmons turns to stalk away as Logan adds under his breath, “Eat my shorts.”

Aaron pivots sharply and looms over Logan. “I beg your pardon, son?”  His voice is icy quiet.

“I said: eat. my. shorts,” Logan responds calmly, staring his father in the eye.

“You just bought yourself a month of Saturdays.”

“Good, I had no plans anyway.”

“And a trip to my study.”

Veronica, in a white dress, sits at the table right in front of him. She whips her head around.  “Logan, stop!” she pleads.

Veronica’s eyes are filled with concern, like he’s her best friend again and his getting in trouble is causing her physical pain.  He swallows his last reply; he never could ignore Veronica’s Bambi eyes.  When he looks back at the man looming over him, Keith Mars is standing there.  “You have thirty minutes for lunch.”  Keith gives him a last stern look and strides out of the library.

The door closes with a clunk and Logan springs up, bouncing over to Veronica sitting one row over from him, and two tables down.  She’s wearing a striped shirt and jeans, unpacking a paper bag lunch.  Logan’s head snaps back toward the other table to check if the other Veronica is still there or if his dreams have now moved from multiple Logans to multiple Veronicas.  Through the black spots and throbbing his sudden movement brings on, he can see white dress Veronica still sitting in her original place. _Interesting. Veeerrry interesting._

Snatching a thermos from striped Veronica’s hand, he grimaces slightly and asks, “What’s this?”

“What does it look like to you, genius?  I know you’ve been skipping your lectures recently, but it’s pretty obviously a thermos full of soup.  Maybe if you started to actually _go_ to those lectures you signed up for, you’d be able to identify common household objects.”

“I meant, since when do you eat soup from a thermos?  And for your information, I _have_ been going to class. Less gambling, more learning. Some of your care and concern seems to have stuck.  So good of you to notice."

Veronica, dressed in her pep squad uniform and sitting at the next table over, is twirling her ponytail around her finger. “God Logan, drama queen much?” She is clearly unimpressed with his snark. 

Logan raises an eyebrow at her, but ignores the remark and places the thermos down the table out of reach to continue rummaging through the lunch. “Oh, look what we have here.  A cheese sandwich with the crusts cut off, celery sticks and an apple juice box. Adorable.”  Logan’s voice drips sarcasm, but striped-shirt-Veronica isn’t having it.

“Yeah, well, not all of us starving students have trust funds to buy gourmet lunches.  What, you didn’t pre-order off the Grand’s room service menu before showing up here?”

Jumping up from his chair, Logan spits out, “Don’t talk to me about trust funds, V, OK?  I earned that damn money!  Every fucking penny, OK? All anyone ever saw was the Cleaver family version of the Echolls. In every fucking magazine.  But you know know the truth, Veronica; you of all people.  And I survived. So if I want to use my fucking trust fund to pay for gourmet Chicken Noodle soup from the gourmet fucking deli, I will!”

Logan spins around, gasping for air; his chest rattles.  He locks eyes with Veronica sitting three tables back, dressed all in black with her butch boots propped up on the table.  She’s watching him intently, eyes slightly squinted, as though considering a puzzle.  Unable to handle her scrutiny – _This is me, V, warts and all.  Why can I never be enough for you, huh?_ — he tears through the tables, jumps up to catch the railing of the open staircase to the next level, and shimmies up to finally sit on the landing, his back to the rest of the room, legs swinging. He closes his eyes and leans his forehead against the railing…

…until the pungent but sweet smelling smoke in the air forces him to open them again.  Logan blinks and looks around.  The room moves slowly, like it’s being dragged through viscous air.  He’s sitting on the floor in a corner of the library, the butt of a joint in his hand, and he isn’t alone anymore.  The despair he’d just been feeling has been replaced by giddiness and he giggles for reasons he can’t name, which send him quickly into a coughing fit.  When it passes, he realises that more giggles are echoing from the group surrounding him.

_Huh? Man, this must be some strong shit._

Veronica Mars is sitting to his left, white dress tucked primly around her knees.

And at his right, the wide collar of her striped shirt falling down over an exposed shoulder.

And twice more right across from him, in black from head to toe and in her pep squad uniform.

_A Veronica Mars orgy.  Now that’s something I can get behind.  And under, and on top of._

Logan smirks and sits up straight, a snarky rejoinder inviting the girls to start about the business of undressing him on the tip of his tongue, but he pauses as another phlegmy cough overtakes him.  _Smooth, Echolls.  Real smooth.  They’ll be all over you now._

He covers his awkward pause with, “So, what did you do to get in here, anyway?” _You’re just full of charm, dude. Four different fantasies at once, and that’s the best you can come up with?_

Veronica adjusts her striped shirt so it sits squarely across her shoulders.  Her eyes flit to each of the others, her voice bitter as she explains, “Apparently, bugging my TA’s phone to prove to the professor  that he was framing me for plagiarism is frowned upon.  Especially since I got an A on the paper in the end.”

Logan waves off her explanation, the ash from the joint he’s holding landing next to his knee. “Did you have any proof this time, before you started flinging accusations?"

She looks at him down her nose.  “When you get used to people sabotaging your life, Logan, the habit is kind of hard to break.”

Logan looks away from her and says quietly, “Yeah, I guess.”

An awkward silence falls over the group until Veronica scoots onto her knees, pep squad shirt pulling up slightly and baring her navel.  She reaches over and plucks the joint out of Logan’s hand.  “Oh, please! That’s nothing!”  She sucks on the end of the joint and immediately starts coughing, hand flapping in front of her face.

Logan rolls around slightly, laughing way too loudly.  “Mars, you never could hold your Mary Jane.”

Veronica glares at him, a last cough escaping.  “As I was _saying_ …What’s one little listening device?  At least no one got hurt.  I dropped the girl at the top of the pyramid.  Normally my best friend helps me hold her up, but she’s dead now. I just — I couldn’t hold the girl up by myself. She broke her leg, and I got sent in here.”  She passes off the joint to Veronica of the black boots.

Logan looks at her, considering.  “There was no one else on the damn squad that could help you?  You didn’t need to do it by yourself.”

“Yeah, well, no way would Mac be caught dead on pep squad, and Yolanda... wasn’t one of my best moments, was it?” She shrugged.

“That whole thing was so screwed up, V.  The party with Yolanda, it was a giant mistake.” Logan shakes his head, denying her guilt.

Veronica leans over, hand demurely covering the neckline of her white dress as she reaches for the joint, interrupting the moment.  “Parties suck.”  She takes a deep toke, eyes closed, and blows out the smoke slowly.  Her cheeks flush and she sighs before opening her eyes.  “I, uh, got drunk at Shelly’s party and didn’t make it home until the next morning. They told me to come here and think about the worry I’d caused.”

Logan looks up in surprise.  “Why the hell did you get detention for that?  It wasn’t like you could help it.  I still can’t believe you showed up to that snake pit.”

Veronica looks away and shrugs.  “I figured with you all giving me the cold shoulder, I’d prove to you how strong I was.  Guess that backfired.”

“Pfft!” Butch boots Veronica snorts.  “You summer-cotton-dress-wearing Barbie princess!  Did you really think you could handle the drunken apes at that party?  What else did you expect to happen?”

“Hey, lay off, it wasn’t her fault!”  Logan snaps.

“Of course it wasn’t, jackass.  But the world is full of people who will let you down, and she should have known that all those former ‘friends’ of hers –” she raises her hands and mimes the quotes “— were just going to treat her like shit.  Expect nothing from anyone and you won’t be disappointed.”

“Shut up!” white dress Veronica screams, tears in her eyes.  “That’s a horrible way to think.  How can you just say things like that?”

“Just calling it like I see it, Princess.” She shrugs and grabs the joint for a hit.

Veronica wipes at her eyes with her now free hands.  “What do you know, anyway?  What are you even doing here?”

Amusement gleams from the heavily lined eyes, and Veronica resettles her black boots more comfortably, smirking faintly.  “I didn’t do anything. I saw Logan and I thought it was sketchy that he was coming to school on a Saturday, so I followed him to figure out what he was up to.”

Logan throws his hands up in resignation.  “Of course you did!  Because God forbid the mighty Veronica Mars lets me screw up without digging up all the gory details to analyze and rub my nose in.“

“Hey, if the shoe fits…” Veronica shrugs her black sweater clad shoulder.  Logan sighs.

“He’s not all bad, you know,” pep squad Veronica mutters.

“Suuure he’s not.  He just cheats on his girlfriend in front of you and then shuts you out when his dirty secret gets aired.  He’s a real charmer.”

Veronica pulls her T-shirt over her knees.  “He is when he wants to be. He held my hand all through Lilly’s funeral and that whole night on the beach.  He refused to leave me alone.”   

“He _is_ a helluva white knight.  Got me out of a jam more than once.  Remember when you found me next to my car, Logan?” Veronica reaches out and nudges Logan’s shoulder, causing her wide, striped collar to fall over her shoulder again.

Logan shrugs.  “Wouldn’t need to save you so often if I didn’t get you into trouble in the first place.”

“You’ve been…known to be useful a time or two, I guess,” butch Veronica admits, and draws her boots under her to rise.

White dress Veronica looks up at herself and tilts her head, considering.  “You know, I have an idea.  Come with me.”  She rises and grabs butch-booted Veronica’s hand, dragging her off around the stacks.

Logan blinks and the Veronicas reappear, except that one of them is completely transformed.  The leading Veronica in the white dress steps aside to let her twin step forward.  Mesmerized, Logan stands up and goes towards her without consciously telling his feet to move.

He glances around, and all the other Veronicas are now gone.  The only one left is standing in front of him, and he can see the ghosts of the others within her: princess, pep squad, Hearst student and cynical PI.  She’s beautiful in a navy blue strapless dress and low ponytail, a glittering necklace at her throat and diamond studs in her ears.  He steps closer and rests his forehead on hers.  She stares up at him intently,  and despite all the different ways she’s been hurt, all the different ways his actions contributed to her pain, what he sees is forgiveness.  _Right?  That’s what it is?  Forgiveness?_

Veronica reaches up to her ear and takes out a diamond stud, handing it to Logan. 

Logan puts it in his ear, thinking in passing that he can’t remember when he’d gotten it pierced.  She cups his face with her hand…


	5. Chapter 5

When he wakes up, his head feels a little better—more clear. He reaches for his ear, but the stud is gone. Veronica is gone. And maybe the sharp pang of disappointment he feels is unfair. He didn’t ask her to stay. She didn’t promise anything.

And Veronica was never really much of a…caretaker, anyway. Like, he’s seen it with other guys—girlfriends who’d practically tried to nest on top of them—checking to make sure they’d done their reading, cleaning up after them, shopping for them. Veronica, on the other hand, always seemed to have a basic expectation that he would keep his shit together.

There weren’t too many people who thought pampered son of luxury Logan Echolls could take care of business. He’d cherished the way Veronica never tried to intervene between him and the harsh realities of the world as evidence of her high standards for him. It was a good feeling.

Of course, when he _didn’t_ handle the shit life threw at him, well that was another story…

But yeah, it wouldn’t really be in character for Veronica to stick around and play nursemaid. He’s surprised she’d stopped by, honestly. She was...here, right? With all the fucking dreams he’s been having he could have made it all up.

A synth-heavy pop beat blares out of the TV. At some point before she’d left, Veronica must’ve turned to one of the endless 80s teen movie marathons on TNT. Sixteen Candles is just starting. Logan rolls over on the couch, kicking his way free of the blankets. His toe smacks into the edge of the coffee table and he curses loudly, wincing at the pain. The movement starts his head pounding again. The once-crisp sheets under him are limp and a little damp. He must’ve had a fever at some point. God, he smells and his hair is all sweat-crusty. No wonder Veronica left.

He’s patting around on the floor, trying to locate the remote without actually having to get up, when he hears the unmistakable sounds of someone unlocking his front door.

 _What the fuck?_ He’s the only one with a key. He struggles to a sitting position just as the lock releases and Veronica bangs into the room with a rustle of plastic bags.

She spots him. “Logan. How long have you been up?”

“Um, just for a minute, how did you…?”

“I took a key earlier, when I left.”

“Well that’s creepy,” he says screwing up his face in confusion, but the smile he can’t suppress probably takes any sting out of it. “Wait, what were you doing here again in the first place?”

“I was in the area. And you’re sick.”

That makes sense, except how did she...god, his head. He gives up on logic.

She slips into the kitchen, sets the plastic bags down on the counter and pulls a couple of tall take-away containers out of them. “Do you even remember begging me to come back with soup?”

“What? No!” He rubs a hand across his eyes and yawns. The tickle in his raw throat objects to the air he breathes, apparently, because he launches into a sudden coughing fit. The spasms keep coming, doubling on each other so hard he can’t catch his breath; his eyes are watering and it feels like his lungs are forcibly trying to evacuate his body.

He’s bent in half, elbows on his knees, gasping between coughs that will not end, and wishing for sweet, illicit-syrup-related oblivion when a glass of water appears in his line of sight. He grabs it like a lifeline, fingers sliding in the condensation, and brings it shakily to his lips. Veronica crouches in front of him, her eyes steady.

He gulps, long and deep, spilling some cool water down his throat, coughing a little more on it, and forcing himself to sip, finally settling into an even rhythm. Breathe, drink, breathe, drink.

“No,” he croaks, finally. “I don’t remember saying anything about soup.”

She raises one eyebrow. “Well, you were pretty insistent.”

“Shit, Veronica.” He rubs a hand across his eyes.  “I’m sorry.”

Veronica straightens up from her crouch. “Sorry ain’t gonna eat this soup, mister.”

“Ugh. Don’t. No Annie Wilkes.”

She smiles a little. “Been watching _Misery_? Kathy Bates is a national treasure.” She hovers a hand over his shoulder like she’s going to pat it, but switches direction mid-gesture, waving in the direction of the bathroom. “Now, come on. Think you can take a shower? You’re pretty ripe. I brought you some actual boxes of tissue and some cold stuff too. FDA approved, this time.”

Thirty minutes, some hot water and an exactingly measured dose of medicine later, he’s back on the couch. Veronica is there, too—her jacket and shoes off—wielding the soup spoon like a martinet. Both Logan and the sheets are clean once again, and _god_ is he glad she’s here, but he’s starting to regret the soup.

“Will you quit?” Logan demands, shoving the spoon aside. “I don’t want any more. I’m bloated with soup. I could float away on the soup already inside me like the last citizens of Atlantis.”

“You’re the one who insisted only gourmet Chicken Noodle from the gourmet deli would do for your sensitive palate,” Veronica says, setting the bowl aside with an exasperated clunk. “ _You_ sent me half an hour out of my way, to pay twenty-three dollars for a pint of this stuff. Drink it and be grateful, or I can’t be held responsible for my actions.”          

“Yeah well, I have no memory of that.” He eyes her thigh, which rests beside his head on the couch cushion. Would she get mad—leave—if he just, like, put his cheek against it? The fact that she’s here, bickering and playing Florence Nightingale, makes him happy…even though he’s so tired (and heavily sedated) he’s not sure how to express it. “Ooh, the threats,” he murmurs, settling in, a careful inch of space between her body and his head. “They never stop. You’re like a tiny Soup Terminator, determined to nourish me, and the rest of the world be damned.”

“Well, clearly you can’t be left alone to take care of yourself. Sugar packets do not belong in the refrigerator, Logan. Toilet paper is not tissue.” She scoots a little closer as she puts the spoon down on the coffee table. _Yes! Thigh contact_.    

“I’m glad you came,” he confides, voice losing coherence. “Even if you ARE a murderous cyborg from a dystopian future, bent on my destruction.”

“Sleep,” she says, her finger a light touch stroking the bridge of his nose. _She used to do that._ “We’ll argue more later, when you can put up a decent fight.”

“Mmmm…” he says. “You say that like I lack stamina. But that’s my code word, remember? Endurance….”

 

* * *

 

One minute, he’s got his face pressed happily to Veronica’s hip; the next, he’s crouched naked in a dirty alley, while lightning flashes around him, and trash whips through the air. A cat runs by, yowling, and he thinks, _am I really barefoot with my dick hanging out in the middle of a city street_?

_There had better be a hot chick in lingerie lurking in this dream, somewhere, or I’m asking for a refund._

“Be careful what you wish for,” Kendall Casablancas says. He turns to see her leaning against a blue-painted phone booth, arms and ankles crossed. She’s in full Victoria’s Secret Dark Angel drag, black high heels, bra and panties, huge and ominous black wings. A Sak’s Fifth Avenue bag dangles from one manicured fingertip.

“Here you go, hot stuff,” she says, sashaying over. She trails one blood-red claw down the center of his chest, slaps the paper sack against his pecs. “This will cost you ALL the cash you inherited from daddy. Also, your self-respect, and the girl of your dreams. Any questions?”

“One,” he says. “How DID we end up in bed together, the night of Alterna Prom? Because I still don’t remember squat.” 

She tsks, making a faux-regretful pouty face. “Veronica’s right, Logan. You DON’T take care of yourself. And look where it’s gotten you. Even scantily-clad gold-diggers lurking in alleys have better guys to do.”

Kendall gives him a finger wave, then explodes into flight in a flurry of feathers. He glances down at the bag in his arms, shrugs. Digs through. It contains a striped, boat-neck t-shirt like a mime would wear, Velcro tennis shoes, grey parachute pants, and an Army Green trench coat. Also a sawed-off shotgun, for reasons unknown.

Logan winces, because seriously, is this nineteen-eighty-FIVE? He’d rather not strut around nude in this Warriors-friendly urban wasteland, though—it’s strangely cold, and he can’t stop shivering—so he dons the gear. Shoves the shotgun into a holster that magically appears on his back; it’s for close encounters, he guesses.

He goes ahead and pops his collar, because he already looks like a douchebag. Then wanders onward, towards the nightclub on the corner. Its sign glows red in the rancid darkness, neon sputtering…Tech Noir. Logan shudders as he approaches. The place doesn’t even sport a velvet rope. Is he REALLY expected to get his post-apocalyptic drink on with the likes of Tad Wilson and Madison Sinclair?

The dead-eyed drunken cashier who looks like Veronica’s mother takes his fifty with limp hands; but when he swings the door open, he finds himself in a long, white hallway. Some smirking jackass in argyle walks past, carrying a baseball bat. Calls out, “Mercer, it’s time for your medication.” Logan spins to study the guy, and behind him, hears grunting.

Logan turns again, peering through the small glass window in a big steel door. And there’s Veronica, doing pull-ups on a sideways-tilted, industrial-strength hospital bed. She’s in her Pep Squad uniform and no bra— clearly SHE’S cold, too.  Her hair’s pulled back, an unruly strand dangling; she’s all his fetishes combined in one determined, small package.

“It’s about time,” she says, dropping down from the makeshift bar, dusting her hands together. “Let me out of here now, if you want to live.”

He opens the door, but lounges against the lintel, blocking her indomitable Tugboat That Could path. “And if I’m not entirely sure?” he asks. “You willing to do more calisthenics? Make my life worthwhile?”

“He’s coming,” Veronica warns. “You want calisthenics of ANY kind with me, you should make sure he’s out of the picture.”

“Who’s coming?” Logan wonders idly, tucking back the stray lock of hair. “Your dad? And what about my private dance routine? I can throw a bucket of water on you, if it gets you in the performing mood.”

“You should use it to douse your libido instead,” she says. Then ducks under his arm, and takes off running down the hall.

Logan follows at a saunter—why is he so TIRED?—extracting his shotgun in case villains appear. Up ahead, her scream of frustration rends the air. He turns the corner to find her thwarted by a wall of bars, fumbling at the lock with a paperclip, oozing steely determination.

“I need my messenger bag!” she informs him, cursing as the clip breaks in the lock. “I need my skeleton keys!”

“Sorry,” he says. “All Kendall gave me was a sack of ridiculous clothes, and a lifetime’s worth of regret.”

“Veronica!” a voice bellows from behind him, and she turns, eyes widening. Logan spins in slow motion, leveling the shotgun as he goes. Because he KNOWS that voice, as well as he knows his own.

The Donut strides remorselessly down the hall, face frozen in heavily-medicated blankness. He’s wearing a blue-striped Oxford, jeans, and those dumb-ass loafers he refuses to lose; his hair is over-gelled. In one hand, he holds a bouquet of red roses, three times bigger than his head…in the other, a beribboned velvet box. “Veronica!” he calls again. “We were MEANT to be together! Things will never get back to normal, if you keep on running away!”

“Freeze, Duncan!” Logan yells, in his deepest, scariest voice. Because, after Donut knocked up Meg, and let Kendall blow him, and did….whatever he did to Veronica at that party (it still gives Logan the cold sweats, when the memory crosses his mind)? Duncan the Fugitive SHOULD be crossed off the Mars Dating List. “She’s responsible for her own orgasm now! She doesn’t need your cheesy-ass fake romance!”

“Oh, but she’s dying for yours?” Duncan sneers, and throws the roses at Logan’s head. Logan catches them, flings them aside; they turn to a puddle of blood on the floor, about the size of Lilly’s skull. Logan shoots.

A hole appears in Duncan’s chest. He glances down at it, smirks, and returns his gaze to Logan. “You’re not upwardly mobile enough to tempt Veronica,” he says. “When will you get it through your head that sexual prowess doesn’t impress her?”

“Sure it does!” Veronica calls from behind them. “Intimacy of the body unlocks emotions, for me. YOU know what I mean, right Logan? It’s not just ANY key that fits.”

Logan reaches into his chest, past the spot where his heart beats, secret. Tucked behind is a cylindrical chunk of metal. He tugs, and it passes right through the meat. “Here!” he yells, tossing the key over his shoulder. “It’s all yours.”

Clicking, grating sounds issue from the lock; but Logan’s gaze is focused on Duncan, who’s slowly turning silver like the robot he is. “You’ll NEVER be normal,” Donut whispers, as he morphs into a blob. Then Veronica’s yanking Logan by the wrist through the gate, and slamming it shut behind them.

The shapeless silver mass steps forward, once and then again, solidifying further with each step. It changes into Piz, wearing that stupid-ass argyle Duncan loaned Logan, and a stupider-ass rictus grin. “Veronica!” the guy calls, his voice higher and entirely more grating. “You’re my Manic Pixie Dream Girl! I’m completely non-threatening, and I DESERVE your love!”

“Run, Veronica!” Logan screams, backing up to the double doors where she’s frantically lock-picking. “It’s the new and improved model! His bullet-proof ‘niceness’ makes him virtually unstoppable!”

Piz giggles as he walks through the bars, silver-blob-oozing between the cracks, seamlessly reforming. “You’d better believe it, buster,” he says. “I’m a radio personality! My parents’ marriage is functional! I have floppy hair, and I play bass for an INDIE ROCK BAND!”

Logan shoos Veronica away from the lock, blasts it with his shotgun. The door swings open. She turns her face up to him, grins, and offers her hand. He takes it in his, and they run.

One of those dream-distorted pursuit montages ensues, where they flee and flee, yet remain in one place. The world spins, and morphs color and shape around them. Objects fly past his head, a tire iron, a sparking taser, a fancy white scrapbook bursting at the seams. Dick rows calmly through the chaos in a red canoe, a lit blunt dangling from his lips.

When things settle, he’s with Veronica in a motel room, shabby and wood-paneled, bad art gracing the walls. V’s donned a Jane-Fonda-Workout headband, and she’s making bombs in the sink.

She glances up from her deadly activities and grins; the genuine smile he almost never earns, a vulnerable softness to her gaze. “We made it,” she says. “We worked together, and escaped disaster.”

“For now,” Logan corrects. “You’ll get pissed at me because I’m a damaged loser someday, and he’ll be back.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” she argues. “You’d become a damaged WINNER, if you’d just grit your teeth and try. I mean, who rescued me from the cell? Who unlocked the hospital doors? Who risks his life on a semi-regular basis, to save me from various dangers?” She packs more plastic explosive into a slice of PVC, grins. “Who taught me all about the ‘best part’, but secretly enjoys cuddling?”

He feels a rush of tenderness as he studies her; straightens from his lean against the wall. “I traveled through time for you, Veronica,” he says. “Shouldn’t that earn me at least ONE pervy dance routine?”

She rolls her eyes and sighs, but the corners of her mouth curl upwards. “Maybe a little one,” she concedes. “I should really take my clothes off first, though. It’s hot in here.”

His grin spreads slowly as she lifts the hem of her shirt. Then a fit of coughing explodes through his chest, and her image wavers, re-forms—

 


	6. Chapter 6

Logan squeezes his eyes shut, muttering, “Come on. All the way off,” but it’s too late. He’s back on his couch, wad of damp tissues in hand. And she’s standing over him in full about-to-leave gear, smirking down with hands on hips.

“You traveled through TIME for me?” she demands. “Logan, what on Earth are you dreaming? Or should I say hallucinating, in light of all the medicine you’ve consumed?”

“You don’t want to know.” He squints at her, coughs some more, rubs a hand over his aching chest. “Your Pep Squad uniform MAY have been involved.”

Veronica raises her eyebrows and he murmurs, “The dreams, they keep hope alive.”

She cracks a smile, unfolds her arms. Removes her bag and settles on the couch, scooting so that his head is in her lap this time. This keeps getting better.

When she lets her hand drift down and scratches her nails softly against the nape of his neck, he can’t help grinning. With that cute scowl she does when she’s not really mad, Veronica takes her hand away and smacks his shoulder.

This whole hallucinogenic-Hollywood thing he seems to have going is disturbing in about a million ways. But he’s willing to endure whatever dreams pneumonia throws at him, a hundred times over, if they lure Veronica this close. He snakes one hand under the boot cut of her jean pant-leg, circles it around the bare skin of her calf. She doesn’t stop him.

The dreams...they _do_ kind of give him hope...

Sliding into a kind of eyes-open doze, he watches the single curl of blonde hair that has fallen over Veronica’s shoulder, coiling around the front of her neck to brush against her clavicle. It rises and falls ever so slightly with the rhythm of her breathing and he drifts along with it. He’s...peaceful. A little light-headed still, and tired, but peaceful.

“Feeling better?” she asks, some indeterminate amount of time later.

“Yeah.”

“You should get some sleep.”

“Ugh. I don’t...I’ve been having some weird dreams.”

He tilts his head up in time to catch the wry twist of her mouth. “Yeah, bootleg cough syrup’ll do that.”

“Well, since you _took_ my only source of entertainment.”

“Poor baby.” She pats his head. “So lost, so alone.”

“Heartless. You’re a cold and heartless creature, Veronica Mars.”

“It’s part of my charm.”

“Heartless.” The concluding _-ssss_ seems to drag on in his mind, like the sound a shell makes when you hold it to your ear, pulling him out with the tide, the rush of the ocean...

 

* * *

 

“A surfboard for little ol’ me?” Logan bats his eyes at Veronica, pleased that she’s paying appropriate tribute to his beauty.

Dick strolls through the salon of the plantation house wearing a wetsuit. A briny ocean smell clings to him, displacing the faint pleasant scent of jasmine and honeysuckle in the air. “Dude, forget the surfboard, why are you wearing a _dress_?” Dick flips up the edge of the skirt. “And _petticoats_?”

Logan smacks his hand away, carefully smooths down his hoopskirt, and turns back to Veronica. ““I really shouldn’t let you keep buying me gifts, Veronica. Can you even afford this?”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s not a gift. I never give anything without expecting something in return.”

Mac —black hair streaked with a shock of electric blue, _high school_ Mac— materializes behind Veronica’s shoulder. “That’s not really true; you know that, right?” She passes through Veronica to move closer to him. “She doesn’t always keep a marker, especially when it comes to you.”

“Yeah, right,” Dick scoffs. “She uses an _abacus_ to keep track of all the ways he owes her and every wrong he’s committed.”

Ignoring the two of them, Logan reaches for Veronica, lightly stroking his fingertips down the curve of her cheek. “It’s not like I’m going to MARRY you for a surfboard, but—”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” She takes a hasty step backward, putting space between them.“I’m not the marrying type.”

“Veronica Mars” —Logan smirks and waves a hand over her— “Old maid.” A wounded look flashes in her eyes and he is instantly contrite. Cradling her hips between his palms, he draws her closer. “I’m sorry."

“Let me go, Logan.” She struggles in his embrace; the rough material of her three-piece suit turning smooth beneath his fingers as she tries to slip from his grasp.

He tightens his hold, his gaze travelling down the fitted bodice of the blue silk gown she’s now wearing, over the tiny, cinched waist and then slowly back to her face. Gone is the chopped hair and angry look. A straight curtain of blonde frames her cheeks, softening her face. He tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

“Why not try a real man, one who knows what to do—” His fingers trace the curve of her ear and glide down her neck, slowing to caress the delicate skin. A faint blush blossoms across her skin as her breath quickens and her hips sway into him. “—with a smart, strong woman?”

She blinks, her lips parting in surprise and Logan starts lowering his head for a taste. “You’re an idiot,” she spits the words, stopping him cold. “You know I’m always going to love Duncan.” Placing her palms flat on his chest, she tries shoving him away, but he still won’t let her go.

“You need to be kissed, often, and by someone who knows how.” Logan crushes her to him, bringing their mouths together in a fiery kiss. Veronica’s hands fist and thump against his shoulder, seeking release. His tongue glides over her bottom lip before slipping inside. Slowly, her fingers unfurl and she clutches at his jacket, surrendering to the kiss.

He wrenches his mouth away. “No one has ever kissed you like this. Not Leo or Piz or even your stupid Donut.”

“Doughnut?” She stares at him, waiting.

The color leaches from her face until she’s black and white. Dressed in tall trousers and a tie, she’s holding out a plate with two doughnuts. The elaborate sitting room with plantation shutters and heavy brocade drapes is now a dingy, motel room with two narrow beds and a wood table.

“Doughnut?” Veronica repeats the question and he takes one of the proffered pastries. Taking the other, she sits across the table from him. “The bus leaves soon.”

_The school bus? For Shark Field?_ Frowning, Logan shoves the doughnut in his black coffee.

“That’s not how you dunk.” To demonstrate, she tears off a piece of the doughnut, quickly dips it in her coffee, and pops it in her mouth. “That’s how you dunk.”

“I can’t ever do anything right for you, can I?”

“Dude, I told you she was a bitch.” Dick reaches past Logan to snag the remaining half of his doughnut. “Why are you even here with her and not off banging some hot chick?”

“Because he loves her.” Mac is back and sitting on one of the beds. The tips of her brown hair are a deep, bright red. “And she loves him.”

“Yeah, right. That’s why she cheated on him with the Pez dispenser.”

“She didn’t cheat,” Mac and Logan say simultaneously.

“Whatever” —Dick finishes the doughnut— “It’s your funeral. Hope you enjoy the tight leash.” With a wave he evaporates, taking Mac with him and leaving Logan alone with Veronica.

“I know you think I’m a screw-up; a spoiled, rich brat, living on my trust fund with no goals and ambition.”

Veronica shrugs. “Well, it makes a great story, doesn’t it? Poor little rich boy with a death wish who changes for the girl he loves.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

“Me?” At her look of surprise, Logan hangs his head.

The hard wooden chair morphs into an equally hard mattress and he’s flat on his back, staring at a cobweb on the ceiling. _Where is she?_ “Veronica?”

“Mmm,” is her sleepy reply.

Turning his head toward the sound of her voice, Logan frowns at the blanket hanging over a rope in the center of the room, separating the two of them and obscuring her from view.

“Haven’t you ever thought about falling in love? You could make someone…” He trails off.

“Sure I’ve thought about it,” her voice drifts through the blanket. “But, eventually, the people you love abandon  you.”

“You didn’t leave.”

“I’ve even made plans,” she continues, without acknowledging his words. “You know, for the future? But where am I going to find that kind of guy? Someone who accepts me the way I am? With all the hard edges and my need for justice? Someone who respects my choices? Who won’t try to change me to fit their mold? A guy who will investigate WITH me and not try to make me give up what I love doing for a career that’s safer, more respectable - like a lawyer,” she says derisively. “If I ever find THAT guy, then—”

Logan jumps out of bed, tearing down the blanket. “I can be that guy for you, Veronica. I’ll never try to make you change. I love—”

A ringing in his ears makes him turn his head. The lyrics to a familiar song start to play. _Your moony face, so inaccessible; your inner mind so inexpressible_.

“That’s my favorite song,” Veronica whispers and when he turns to her the motel is gone and they’re in a nightclub. A big band is playing, wailing saxophones and an entire rhythm section, and Veronica is sitting in a booth next to him, her thigh pressed close to his. Her hair cascades over her shoulders in loose curls, a pink half hat pinned to her head at a jaunty angle.

He smiles at her. “Funny, it’s my favorite, too.” The room fades away and for a moment he forgets they aren’t alone. “Hey Piz” —he barely glances across the table— “mind if I dance with Veronica?”

Neither of them wait for an answer and they are on the dance floor in each other’s arms.

“I haven’t seen you in a while?” She’s not looking directly at him, focusing on a spot past his shoulder.

He tilts his head to the side to see her face. “You said you needed time so I’m keeping my distance.”

“But you’ve been going to classes and—”

He doesn’t try to hide his smile. “Have you been tailing me?”

“You wish,” is her response and he knows both are true - that he wants her to be keeping tabs on him _and_ that she has been.

Dick waltzes by them and gives him a nod. He’s got Mac in his arms, but neither of them speak. For the first time, they are blissfully silent, and Logan takes it  as a sign.

“How about giving that Piz chump the air and coming home with me?” Veronica’s steps slow as the music ends and he’s afraid she will tell him no. “I’ve got great plans for the two of us.”

“Oh Logan.” She places her palm on his cheek. “Everything’s going to be okay now.”

Her face stutters in front of him—a screen momentarily losing focus—and her next words are garbled by a blur of black and white static. “I’m gonna have you and you’re gonna have me, for always.”

A shaft of pale yellow light cuts through the static to illuminate her face.  Her eyes are closed, hair tousled, and she’s lying on his couch. The image flickers again. Dancing Veronica is still there—ephemeral and lovely in his arms—and he doesn’t want her to go.  “Wait.”

The couch is gone. Her hips stop swaying and she raises her other hand to his face. The nightclub springs back into focus and she is pulling him down for a kiss. Soft at first—tentative almost—then it ignites with emotion and remembered passion.  It is forgiveness and longing and homecoming.

The scene grows fuzzy once more and Veronica starts to fade, but he can still feel her next to him, still hear her clearly. “I love you, Logan,” she says.

Her words linger as the image goes black.

 

* * *

 

When Logan emerges from sleep this time, it’s to a world that seems to have regained focus somehow. The living room is full of the lemony light of early morning and he’s sprawled across the couch. His chest still aches, but his head is clearer, and Veronica is partially underneath him. She must have fallen asleep on the couch with him last night, and sunk into the crack between the cushions and the back. His face is mashed into her side and his sinuses have cleared. Or, cleared enough to tell that she smells like sleep and her and him, anyway, all mingled together, warm and familiar.

“Tomorrow is another day,” he says **—** why, he’s not sure.

Veronica lets out a light snore in response and mumbles something that sounds like, “I speshifically you, too.” It doesn’t make any more sense than the sleep talking she used to do back when they were dating.

Carefully, Logan eases off of her and stands, giving himself a brief moment to recover his equilibrium. He walks into the kitchen and runs himself a glass of water. The cold liquid tastes like elixir of the gods as he gulps it, chasing out the cotton-muzzy taste of sick and yuck and phlegm in his mouth. He splashes some water on his face, waking up a little further.

At some point, while he was asleep or out of it, Veronica tidied up the kitchen, clearing away the soup detritus and tissues and alcohol spills. _What is she doing here?_

He grabs a twist tie Veronica missed off of the counter, and wraps it around one fingertip as he heads back into the living room. Veronica hasn’t moved, still snoring away softly, wedged uncomfortably into the couch cushions. He tucks his hands into the waistband of his sweats and stares down at her.

She came. That was...unexpected. She stayed. That is maybe more so. He would have thought, from the way she’s avoided all but casual contact since the end of last year that she didn’t—that she wouldn’t care if he was sick, or missed a class.

His dreams...he never really realized what a twisted version of her he was carrying around. How angry—frustrated, whatever—he was about some of the shit they’ve been through. How much he was maybe...confused about what she felt or didn’t feel.

They’re just dreams. Right? The mind’s way of sorting out stuff we can’t deal with during the day. Or at all.

He toes one bare foot into the carpet. Wiggles it into the crack under the sofa.

Veronica’s eyes blink open. She groans as she struggles free of the couch’s embrace. Once extricated, she untwists her shirt and stretches her arms over her head, working out a kink in her shoulder. “Feeling better?”

“Mmhm.” He unwinds the twist tie, winds it around another finger.

“Okay. Just give me a minute in the bathroom and I’ll be out of your way. I didn’t—”

He interrupts. “Did I really beg you to come back with soup?”

Veronica eyes him for a second, then turns her face up to the ceiling. “Mm, I don’t remember your _exact_ words.”

Logan sits on the couch next to her, the twist-tie slipping from his fingers and falling to the ground. “Why did you come over, yesterday?”

“I was in the neighborhood for a case.”

He opens his mouth to ask—well, something, but she pushes up swiftly and heads back to the bathroom before he can get the words out. He sighs and buries his face in his hands for a long moment; lifting it only when he registers the curious lack of splashing-water sounds. Instead she’s...talking?

He gets up and wanders a little closer. Not, you know, _creepy_ close, just hovering at the end of the hallway where he can make out the general tenor of the conversation. Make sure nothing’s wrong.

“...’s okay,” he catches faintly through the door. “Just too much questionable Tijuana cough syrup, not enough antibiotics. No, he’s still a better patient than _you._ ”

She laughs and Logan inches a step closer, caught by the mystery of who she could be talking to, who might be concerned about him. “No, it’s fine… Um, I’m not sure. Probably soon. …. What does it matter? You’re in Vegas, anyway….Okay, okay. I’ll call you. Yeah. I love you too.”

Her Dad. Feeling a little light-headed, suddenly, and guilty for listening in, Logan backs away from the hall.

Veronica’s phone call makes him remember, dimly, that someone called _him_ at some point while he was out of it. He wanders into the kitchen, where he spots the answering machine—red light blinking to indicate four messages. _Oh yeah._ He’d meant to listen to the messages, but...didn’t? Yesterday is more blank spots than memories. Yeesh. Lesson learned. No more shady, probably illegal, over-the-border cold medicine ever again.

He stabs the button and hunches over the counter to listen to his messages, propping his forehead on his hands.

“BEEP...Logan, it’s me. Uh, Veronica. You weren’t in class today. Or Monday. I just wanted to make sure you remembered the paper was due. Um, call me back. It’s...the same number.”

“BEEP…” A single inhaled breath and seconds of crackling silence, then a click.

“BEEP…” Another hang-up.

“BEEP… Dude!” It’s Dick. “Where you at? You get sick like you thought? I got some shit for you if you are—make you fly so high you won’t notice the flu. Soo-dah-toss.” Dick raps the medicine’s name out with relish—and a surprisingly decent accent. He pauses for a second. “Also, uh, Ronnie came cruising by the frat house—scared the shit out of Charleston. Said she was trying to track down some information, but I think she may have been looking for you.” Dick chuckles and lets his voice go robotic. “Danger! Danger, Will Robinson.” The imitation is ruined when he belches loudly into the phone. “Call me bro, we’ll do lunch.”

“Are those the dulcet tones of Richard Casablancas, Junior I hear?” Veronica—her jacket and shoes on—pokes her head into the kitchen and looks around. “Oh.”

Logan straightens up. “Dick left a message. So did you. More than one, I think.”

“Yeah.” She bends down and untucks the hem of her jeans, which is caught on the top of one boot. “It wouldn't kill you to pick up your phone sometimes, you know.”

“I didn’t let you in yesterday,” he realizes, the threads finally snapping together in his still slightly fuzzy mind. “You broke into my apartment.”

Veronica straightens slowly. “You weren’t in class. The paper was due.”

“I emailed it to Jogovich.” He taps the counter with a finger. “I’m sure he would’ve told you that if you’d asked.”

She shrugs, the jerky dismissive gesture she makes when she’s defensive, and avoids his gaze. “Oh. Well, I called. You didn’t answer.”

“So you broke in?” Logan folds his arms, instinctively mirroring her, but with a grin on his face.

“I knocked first. Like, a lot.” She widens her eyes and shifts slightly on her feet, putting one hand in her back pocket.

Logan laughs and claps. “And then, once you’d used—what? Mini bolt cutters?” Veronica’s hand drifts protectively toward the messenger bag slung over her shoulder, but she neither confirms nor denies. He dips, hand at his heart. “Aw. B&E just for me, huh? Okay. But once you broke in, you didn’t even _ask_ about the paper—”

“You were sick, Logan. I had my hands full and...forgot.”

“You came by to make sure I’d turned my paper in, but forgot to ask about it? Huh. You know, for someone with your attention to detail, that seems like a real oversight.”

“I came by because no one had seen you all week, and I was worried I’d find you lying in a pool of your own vomit,” she snaps.

“Veronica…”

She holds a preemptive hand up. He steps in towards her to—he’s not sure—calm her down maybe, let her know it’s fine, more than fine, and winds up giving her an unintentional high five. His hand stays on hers and she swallows. They stand, palm to palm.

“You’ve been doing good this year, I’ve...noticed.”

“I’ve been trying.”

“Yeah.”

At the pugnacious jut of her chin, Logan’s small remaining store of indignation dries up. “Dick said you were looking for me?”

“I was worried.” It’s quiet, but not tentative.

His heart is doing a weird kickstart-thump thing in his chest. Pneumonia doesn't cause heart murmurs, right? “Well, thanks. I mean it.”

Silence settles uncomfortably, but she doesn’t leave. She didn’t leave. She’s standing here in his kitchen. She hunted him down and broke into his apartment and brought him soup and stayed the night and she doesn’t seem to care all that much about the paper. She came because she was worried about him and, and maybe...

“Hey, Logan…” She takes her hand away from his and touches the pendant at her sternum.

“Yes, Veronica?”

“So you definitely emailed your paper then?” Her smile is beautifully crooked and warm. “Cause I’m still not sure.”

“Yes. I. Emailed. The. Paper.”

“Got it.” She snaps her fingers. “Just crossing t’s, dotting i’s, you know the drill.”

“Of course. What about you? Did _you_ remember to hand in your paper?”

“Day of. Bright and early.”

“Which director did you wind up choosing?”

“Francois Truffaut.”

“Hon hon hon,” he fake-laughs, stroking an imaginary goatee.

“Oui.” The strap of Veronica’s messenger bag is sliding down her shoulder; instead of hitching it back up, she lets it slip to the floor and leans against the kitchen counter.

“What did you write about?”

“Originally, my paper was going to be called:  Are Women Magic?”

“Ah, the central question of _Day for Night_.”

Veronica mock-gasps, “Logan, you watched a film _en francais_?”

“No way. That one was dubbed.”

“Right.”

He laughs at her appraising squint and his laugh turns into a cough, which he directs into his elbow. Veronica rubs his back and steers him gently to the couch. Eventually, the coughing dies down. She doesn’t move away.

“I’ve missed you.”

Her voice is the softest he’s heard it in a long time.

“I really didn’t want to take an early morning film class. But… I missed you.”

The room is warm but not too warm, and despite the congestion settling behind half of his face, he can finally think. Every single detail of this moment sings. Veronica’s thumb strokes his hand and her thigh presses against his, solid and real. The quick, furtive lick she gives her lips before she speaks tells him whatever she’s about to say is true.

“Can we maybe see—”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t let me finish.”

“Yes.”

She laughs. “Don’t you want to know what you’re agreeing to, Logan? Maybe I want to see an old Truffaut movie about the daughter of Victor Hugo.” Veronica tilts her head back, regarding him with a sly grin. “I hear it’s a real doozy—a cinematic portrait of madness and unrequited love; hours of a frail, emotionally compromised woman wandering the rainy streets, pining in French—so MUCH French—with no hope of a sex scene or happy ending.”

“Are we watching this together?”

Veronica nods, taking his hand in hers.

“Sounds like a happy ending to me.” He waggles his eyebrows at her. “Answer’s still yes.”

She gazes up at him, and he maybe realizes why he’d hallucinated earlier that she was glowing. Because when Veronica is happy—happy with _him_ —she kind of _does_. The corner of her mouth quirks, wry, and the way she says “Smooth talker,” is like a caress.

“I have many gifts,” he tells her, trying with limited success to keep from beaming. “An excess of charm is but one.”

She lifts his hand to her lips and kisses the back, and it feels better than possibly-illegal Mexican cough syrup by a factor of ten. “What if, instead of going to see that movie, we stayed in? How profound would your disappointment be?”

“If I sink into a decline,” he says, “I can count on having my life saved by a very determined nurse.”

“Yeah, you can,” she says, and leans her head against his shoulder with a soft sigh.

They talk until it grows dark; idle banter, mostly **—** the comfortable kind that feels like coming home. At one point, Veronica mentions a Jaws marathon showing on cable.  He hides the remote under the couch cushions while she’s in the bathroom, so the TV stays off, black and harmless, reflecting only them.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This whole fic was a collaborative effort from beginning to end, and every one of the seven authors played a significant part in brainstorming the plot and arcs, beta-ing and editing, and shaping the final product. We hope this was a seamless read, with all of the parts blending together to create a harmonious whole. With that said, certain segments of the fic were spearheaded by certain authors:
> 
> The opening scene and the “awake” segments between dreams were written by bryrosea.  
> The _Misery_ dream was written by scandalpants.  
>  The Hitchcock montage dream, including _Notorious, Rear Window, Suspicion, The 39 Steps,_ and _Vertigo_ was written by ghostcat.  
>  The _Overboard_ dream was written by nevertothethird.  
>  The _Breakfast Club_ dream was written by marshmallowtasha.  
>  The _Terminator_ mash-up dream was written by cheshirecatstrut.  
>  The Clark Gable montage dream, including _Gone with the Wind, It Happened One Night,_ and _Hold Your Man_ , was written by cmackenzie.  
> The concluding scene (everything after the last dream) was written in collaboration by ghostcat, cheshirecatstrut, and bryrosea.
> 
> All of the authors send an enormous thank you to **mysilverylining** for beta reading this whole thing and for her advice and support!


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